DEADLOCKED: 4 days into deliberations, jurors in Cosby trial still can't reach a verdict

In this May 24, 2016, file photo, Bill Cosby departs the Montgomery County Courthouse after a preliminary hearing, in Norristown, Pa.

source

Associated Press/Matt Rourke

The
jury tasked with sealing Bill Cosby's fate has deadlocked after
30 hours of deliberations.

Following
six days of testimony and closing arguments, the 12-person
jury has been deliberating whether the popular entertainer is
guilty of giving drugs to and molesting former Temple University
employee Andrea Constand more than a decade ago.

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"We cannot come to a unanimous consensus on any of these counts,"
the panel said in a note to the judge, according to
NBC News. Even though Cosby's attorney motioned for a
mistrial, Judge Steven T. O'Neill sent the jurors back to
reach a verdict.

On Thursday, the jury
entered into its fourth day of deliberations - and announced
that it cannot arrive at a unanimous decision despite extended
deliberations. According to the Associated Press, the judge told
them to keep trying to arrive at a decision.

The jury of seven men and five women has been sequestered in a
local hotel not far from the Montgomery County Courthouse in
Norristown, Pennsylvania. Due to concerns of juror impartiality,
the jurors
were selected from Allegheny County, more than 300 miles from
where the alleged assault took place.

Under Pennsylvania law, a judge
has the power to decide what to do once a jury announces
deadlock. In most cases, the judge will simply tell the jury to
keep deliberating and review the others' points of view.

"It's a very, very rare occasion that a judge is going to let a
jury off the hook on the first indication they're hopelessly
deadlocked," Pennsylvania criminal defense lawyer Ed Paskey
told The Washington Post.

Since Monday, the jury has been deliberating the
evidence. The prosecution spent five days presenting evidence
from Constand herself as well as expert witnesses, while the
defense took just over six minutes to argue that Constand had
consented to a relationship.

While many in the courthouse have been speculating about the
jury's progress, it has been couched under a thick veil of
confidentiality - the jurors have been warned against talking to
the media while judicial officials refused to tell The New York
Times whether they are able to have a computer over the course of
their sequester.

A sequestered jury is "not unlike being in a medium-security
prison," Paula L. Hannaford-Agor, director of the Center for
Juries Studies at the National Center for State Courts, told the
Times.

Bill Cosby arrives for jury deliberations in his sexual assault trial at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pa., Thursday, June 15, 2017.

source

Matt Rourke (Associated Press)

At the start of the deliberations, the jurors
also wanted to revisit Cosby's old descriptions of his
relationship with Constand and the testimony of the Canadian
police officer who took down Constand's initial report back in
2005.

"At this point, we can assume there is some significant
disagreement," Michelle Madden Dempsey, a law professor at
Villanova University told The New York Times. "But perhaps the
length of deliberation simply reflects the fact that the jury is
doing a thorough and thoughtful review and discussion of the
issues."

The
Philadelphia Inquirer reported the jury was showing "serious
signs of fatigue" on Wednesday, and that one of the elderly
members even looked like he was dozing off at one point.

"This is an incredible jury that has just acted with incredible
dignity and fidelity," O'Neill told the jury as he dismissed them
Wednesday night. "I don't have any higher praise. You have taken
your task so seriously."

The jury will emerge from deliberations whenever they decide
whether to send Cosby to prison for as many as 10 years.